


Why Are You the Way You Are?

by Kedreeva



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Hopeful Ending, M/M, Simren - Freeform, many questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: Five times Kieren was asked a question, and one time he asked it, instead.





	Why Are You the Way You Are?

            “Why are you-”  _so stand-offish, so weird, so stubborn_ “-the way you are?”

            Kieren is ten years old and his eye is going black around the edges and there’s a frown tugging at his lips the first time Rick asks him.

            “You don’t have to stay if you don’t like it,” he tells Rick, but he doesn’t give back the ice pack he’s got pressed to his face. “I don’t need your help standing up to them.”

            “You shouldn’t have done it, Ren.”

            There’s a lot of things Kieren shouldn’t do, according to everyone else. He doesn’t care. They’ll never be the boss of him. “They were going to hurt Philip.”

            “They hurt you instead.” Rick says it like an argument. They’re not even friends yet.

            “Some things are worth getting hurt over.”

 

* * *

 

            “Why are you-”  _so insufferable, so sweet, so different_  “-the way you are?”

            Kieren is fourteen and Rick’s fingers are wrapped around a CD with a mix of their favorite songs. Kieren’s smile is soft and pleasant and Rick’s certain the flutter in his own stomach can only mean one thing.

            “I like you.” Kieren says it plainly, easily. It’s just a fact of life for him.

            It’s a nightmare for Rick. His father will find the CD eventually.

            “You shouldn’t have done this, Ren.”

            Kieren turns his eyes upward as he smiles. Rick knows that look. Kieren loves doing everything he shouldn’t. It’s going to get them into trouble. “Do you like it?”

            “I like you,” Rick says, and it’s worth all the trouble he’ll be in to see the way Kieren lights up at those words.

 

* * *

 

            “Why are you-”  _so amazing, so in love with me, able to be yourself_  “-the way you are?”

            Kieren is sixteen and sitting in the Den,  leaning up against Rick, his back warm against Rick’s arm as he etches their names into the ceiling with his army knife. The edges of Kieren’s lips turn up at the familiar question.

            “This is how I like to be,” Kieren says. There’s no other way for him. He is exactly who he is, and nothing else. Rick is still struggling to learn to be who he is, and Kieren knows why. But he’s patient, and he loves Rick, so he doesn’t push it. “What do you think?”

            Rick turns his head, glancing for the first time at what Kieren’s been doing.

_Ren + Rick_

            His face does something Kieren can’t describe, and he won’t quite look at Kieren now. “You shouldn’t have done that, Ren,” he says quietly. “We’re not the only ones who come to the Den.”

            He carves in  _4ever_  beside their names anyway, and Kieren believes him.

 

* * *

 

            “Why are you-”  _so beautiful, so good, still with me_ “-the way you are?”

            Kieren is seventeen and they are sitting on top of Rick’s father’s truck looking up at the blanket of stars in the sky. The whole town is spread out below them and there’s a bottle of White Lightning between them that has loosened Rick’s tongue, though not enough to tell Kieren that he’s leaving in the morning. There’s not enough alcohol in the world to give Rick the courage to face the look Kieren would give him.

            “I won’t hide who I am for people who don’t even like me.” Kieren makes it sound so simple, like nothing bad will happen for being himself. Maybe it won’t for him. Maybe the warmth of their tangled fingers is just a comfort to Kieren.

            When it’s time to go, Rick starts the truck and takes them back into town. Outside his house, Kieren leans over the shifter to press a kiss to Rick’s cheek for the first time.

 _You shouldn’t have done that, Ren_. He cannot bring himself to say it aloud.

            “See you tomorrow,” he says instead. Kieren smiles as he steps away from the truck.

            They will never see one another alive again.

 

* * *

 

            “Why are you-”  _dead, undead, not alive the way I left you_  “-the way you are.”

            Kieren will be eighteen until he is one hundred and neither of them knows it is the last time Rick will ask him their question. They are sitting in Rick’s father’s pickup, and everything they could have been lays broken between them.

            “When you died, everything turned to shit.” The words claw their way out of his throat, raw and painful. They don’t encompass everything Kieren went through when Rick left him behind with nothing. “Life didn’t mean anything anymore.”

            “So you… offed yourself?” Rick’s disbelief, his disapproval, is nearly tangible. Kieren knows what’s coming before the words are out of Rick’s mouth. “You shouldn’t have done that, Ren.“

            There are a lot of things Kieren should never have done in his life.

            Loving Rick was never one of them.

 

* * *

 

            “Why were you-”  _the way you were_  “-so depressed?”

            Kieren is eighteen and so immortal he doesn’t have time to waste asking anything other than exactly what he means. The question is familiar, though the words feel alien on his tongue. This was Rick’s question, but Rick has gone to where Kieren will not follow a second time. He swallows down the aching memory as he looks up at Simon.

            “The way I was wired, I guess.”

            It is startling to receive such a straightforward answer. Kieren remembers that Simon is immortal as well- maybe he is just as tired as Kieren of all the bullshit of life.

            “Since the day I could think, I’d had this idea in my head. This piercing notion that life was completely meaningless. Me and everyone else were just treading water until our bodies gave out and we sank back into the darkness.”

            It’s dramatic, more dramatic than Kieren thinks is necessary, but he knows the feeling. He’s never heard it aloud before, but he remembers the way he let the feeling bleed out of him in the cave. He remembers the relief he felt to know it would be gone.

            “When you feel like that 24/7, you might as well get fucked up beyond belief, because you don’t believe in anything in the first place.”

            He cannot stay near someone like this, he thinks. He left those kind of thoughts in a crimson puddle on the floor of the den, viscous liquid reflecting the words of the broken promise scrawled on the ceiling.

            “Do you still feel that way?” He looks up into Simon’s eyes, worried about the answer.

            “No.”

            Kieren realizes, as relief washes through him, that he wasn’t worried for himself.

            He was worried for Simon.

            “Not anymore.”

            Maybe things will be different this time.


End file.
